Study: Social network teens likely to smoke, drink, use pot

Here’s a new report that might scare the hell out of parents: American teenagers who spend time on Facebook, Myspace or other social networking sites are five times more likely to use tobacco, three times more likely to drink alcohol and twice as likely to smoke marijuana.

The study by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University suggested 12-to 17-year-olds showed a higher likelihood of substance abuse with exposure to photos posted on social networks showing that kind of activity, or from watching “suggestive” teen TV shows like “Jersey Shore,” “Teen Mom,” “16 and Pregnant,” “Skins” or “Gossip Girl.”

But before you parents out there rush over to smash your teen’s computers and TVs with a baseball bat, the research does not say social networking directly causes kids to smoke, drink and use pot.

The research wasn’t set up to determine a cause and effect “in part because human will – the individual’s decision to use illegal drugs, alcohol and tobacco – always comes into play,” said Steve Wagner of QEV Analytics, a Washington, D.C., research firm that did part of the study.

“But what is unmistakable from our research is that time spent on social networking sites is associated with a teen’s risk of substance abuse,” Wagner said.

“Moreover, we know that teens who use such sites in a typical day are more likely to have been the victim of cyber-bullying and are more likely to have been exposed to photos of other teens getting drunk or high on drugs, than are teens who do not use a social networking site in a typical day.”

The center based its conclusions on concurrent surveys of a total of about 2,043 teenagers and 528 parents done in March, April and May. The study is being released Wednesday morning at a press conference in Washington.

The study showed 70 percent of the teens spent time on a social network “in a typical day.” And 40 percent of all teens had seen photos on social networks of kids “drunk, passed out or using drugs.” Half of the teens saw those photos when they were aged 13 or younger.

So as center chairman and founder Joseph Califano Jr. said in a news release, the study “offers grotesque confirmation of the adage that a picture is worth a thousand words.”

Califano, who was secretary of Health, Education and Welfare during the Carter Administration, offered some common sense advice for parents that goes beyond whether they are on social networking.

Califano did recommend parents monitor their teen’s use of Facebook, but said they should also be “involved and engaged in their teen’s lives.”

“Parental engagement is a key factor to lowering teen substance abuse risk, as are frequent family dinners, religious services and consistent messages,” Califano said in an e-mail. “We know from 16 years of surveys and lots of other research that for better or worse parents have more influence over their teen’s risk of substance abuse than anyone else and it is important for parents to send a consistent and unified message to their teens about drugs and alcohol.”

UPDATE: YouthFacts.org, a group “that seeks to debunk the barrage of modern mistruths about youth,” today ripped this study “yet another simplistic, sensational study on youth.”

A post written by Mike Males, the group’s principal investigator, said the study could be “simply invalid on its face” and was “typical of a genre of uncontrolled studies that make sensational claims touting media influences without assessing their importance in relation to a host of far more important family, community, and individual influences.”